Absolution
by Sionnain
Summary: If Erik is seeking absolution, Charles has none to give. Charles&Erik, though the characters are Charles and Rogue.


**Absolution**

_He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere_. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

He does not stop her the night she comes to him, because he's not perfect, even though he's aware sometimes they think he is.

No, he's always told his students that even if they are _homo superior_, they're still _human_. They are not without fault, and just because he is a telepath this does not mean _he_ is, either. So even though he can sense her, moving down the hallways like a specter, a flash of white in the hushed darkness of the mansion, he does nothing to halt her progress towards his room. He could gently give her the impression that she should go back to bed, or even that he is deeply asleep and does not wish to be woken up.

That's not true, though. Charles doesn't sleep well, because there are too many people in the mansion and their thoughts are like separate entities unto themselves—they press around him, heavy and thick, like the stones that comprise the building in which they live. Some of the others have terrible nightmares, like Kurt, and some of them are still too full of grief to sleep, like Scott. Most of the others are just teenagers with too many thoughts and emotions that cannot be contained, which is to be expected, and is almost comforting.

Though there are nights he thinks those thoughts will twine around him and choke him, like the ivy climbing the stones outside.

He's aware it is not only Rogue who has come to visit him that night, but it does not make him stop her, even though he knows that it should. The door opens with the softest of noises, and he sees her there in her full-length white nightgown, gloves encasing her arms up to her elbows, haloed by the soft golden light from the sconces in the hallway.

"Rogue," he says, pushing himself up until he is sitting upright, sounding as dignified as he can while wearing monogrammed pajamas. "Rather late for a visit, isn't it?"

"Professor." Something about living up north has stripped some of the drawl from her voice—though maybe it's also because she has men living in her head, men who know nothing of the gentle rhythms of the speech of her native home.

Men who know nothing of gentleness, in whatever form it may take.

She's watching him with earnest dark eyes, but there is a set to her mouth he recognizes from other conversations, late at night, when the moon spilled through the large bay window just as it does now. Memories from a time when he did not sleep alone in this large bed, which now has a side that is always cold since he cannot roll over in his sleep to warm it.

"Why did you never move?"

Charles feels a chill within the recesses of his mind, a slow trickle of icicles. She's not Rogue, not now. Oh, not because she knows about Erik—anyone might have told her that. No, it's the faintly mocking censure that seeps into her words that lets him know, for the moment, Rogue is tucked somewhere away inside herself.

"It's my bedroom. Why should I have moved?" He shouldn't do this—it's not really Erik, he's not here, in this room, in this mansion. In fact, probably not in this _country_, not if he's smart, and Erik has always been that.

Wherever he is, he's hidden; from Charles' mind and from Cerebro, and somewhere biding his time, plotting something, and Charles is sure they will meet again in due time.

"Would you kill me, if you could?"

Rogue moves while he is lost in his thoughts, and now she is sitting on the bed with him, like a young girl—legs drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, chin resting atop her knees. Amidst all the white her hair is very dark; the moonlight adds shadows to her face that cannot possibly be there, or should not be.

"I should think you know the answer to that," Charles answers, somewhat wearily, and he wants her to go away. He doesn't make her, even though he could, because that would be giving in to Erik even if Erik isn't really there.

"You would, if I became a threat to your X-Men and your precious school," Rogue says, and she's so far gone he can hear the faintest trace of Erik's accent in her speech, a slight lilt in the words that her voice has never possessed.

"Rogue," he says carefully, thinking maybe he ought to remind her that she is still herself, but she laughs.

It is not Rogue's laugh, but there is a hint of her in there buried beneath the caustic amusement he so easily recognizes. It's like the briefest hint of warmth in a cold winter's day—fleeting, gone too soon, eventually eclipsed by something far more powerful.

Rogue crawls towards him and the moonlight plays some sort of trick, because there is a moment when he swears her eyes shine ice-blue as she stares at him.

"She could so easily kill you, Charles. She almost did it to me, on Liberty Island. A curious feeling, to have one's powers drained away. Do you know what it felt like? Can you possibly imagine?" One gloved hand reaches out, fingers walking up his leg, and he follows their progress up the striped paisley of his pajama pants, silk that he can't even feel.

Charles watches the way she cocks her head so that her white streak falls into her eyes, giving her an innocent-yet-playful look, even though her smile is razor-sharp and older than her years should allow. He understands that this is who she is; a mixture of young Marie and the others who have left their indelible mark on the curve of her smile, in the quiet corners of her mind.

"I imagine you felt human," Charles answers, and her smile fades. She inclines her head to him regally, an insufferably arrogant gesture that he regards almost fondly.

"Yes. I felt human. Weak." Her hand slides further up his leg, and he finally reaches out to stop her as it inches higher. He wraps his fingers around the soft leather of her gloves, wondering if she chose the white or if it was Erik.

She doesn't protest as he halts her progress, but turns her hand and joins her fingers with his. "Didn't you feel that way, Charles, when you realized what had happened with Stryker? When you saw how they will stop at nothing to destroy us?"

Charles stares down at her hand, feels her grasping at his fingers tightly, as if seeking comfort. Is this truly Rogue, hoping for his assurance that she will be able to quiet the unwelcome presence in her mind? Or is it Erik, somewhere beneath his megalomania and his pride, seeking some absolution Charles cannot grant, even if he wants to?

"I did not feel weak, Erik. I felt sadness and pity for Stryker and his misguided plans, certainly." He takes a deep breath, reminding himself that Erik is a master strategist and this isn't actually Erik.

Rogue moves up until she is straddling him, her hand still clasped in his. He feels the tickle of her hair underneath his nose—she smells like apples, nothing like Erik. He can feel the press of her body against him, soft womanly curves, and there too, she is nothing like Erik.

"Were you not _angry_, Charles?"

How can it be that she _sounds_ so much like him? The same inflection of voice, steel with something warm pulsing just beneath it? He feels as if he can close his eyes and see Erik there before him, as if the hand he holds is no longer wrapped in leather but is naked flesh; cold, as Erik's always was.

"I was," Charles says in a strangled voice, because he doesn't like to lie. If no one can lie to him, he feels it is only fair to return the favor, if at all possible.

"Ah." Triumphant, amused; the same tone of voice Erik would use when they were building Cerebro, when he had to explain the arrangement of panels to Charles. _You know people, Charles, but I understand the configuration of the steel._

"I was angry at _you_," Charles supplies, and he feels Rogue tense in his lap, her young muscles slowly tightening, her hand squeezing his like a vise.

"I am certain you were. I did not want to kill you then, nor do I now. Which you must know, else you would have stopped _her_ from getting this close to you. All that deadly skin." Rogue laughs and suddenly her mouth is next to his ear; her breath is warm and it ghosts over his flesh. Charles has a sensory memory of Erik, long ago, and how his breath would feel when he spoke next to his neck, and it is the same.

"I've never wanted to be your enemy, Charles." Rogue leans forward so that her hair is falling around his neck, and that is nothing like he remembers with Erik, but it doesn't matter, because there is still her breath, her voice, and the curve of her smile he can see in the moonlight. All of those things are Erik; all of those things he recalls easily in his mind, in places he thought he had shut away.

"I know," he says quietly, and he squeezes her hand.

She drops her head to his shoulder and they remain there for a long time, Rogue curled in his lap. She is barefoot and could easily press her bare skin against his leg without him feeling it; likewise she is tormented by her would-be murderer's presence in her mind and he could easily rid her of that presence.

Neither of them do a thing, merely lie curled together, and eventually she pulls back and it is only Erik's face he can see in his mind, the day he left, the day their rift became more than a difference in ideology.

The day they became enemies.

There was nothing else they could be without losing each other entirely, and deep down he understands that neither of them wanted _that_. Even if this was all they'd ever have, all they'd ever be, at least it was something.

She kisses him, gently, and he allows her to, his hand wrapped around the back of her head, holding her like he remembers, when he allows himself to remember. Her mouth is cool like Erik's, and for a moment he closes his eyes and forgets everything.

Eventually he feels Rogue's powers flare between them, that subtle shift and that is enough to cause Erik to fade away for the moment. Charles releases her hand and puts his own on her shoulders, but as it turns out it is not necessary to push her away.

She scrambles off him, the surge of her power enough to put Erik from her mind, and her hand is clasped to her mouth as she stares at him with an expression of horror that is almost comical. "Oh, Professor…I—"

"Rogue. It is all right. You were…not yourself." His voice is soothing—carefully he sends a psychic tendril of calm out towards her, wraps around her like a warm blanket, and he watches her face relax.

She stands up from the bed, with a burst of quick energy, and he's glad to see she is herself again. "I didn't…I mean, you're not…?" The question hovers there in the air between them.

"You did not have sufficient time, no," he says, hiding a smile at her naiveté—as if he's read her mind, thus proving he still has his powers and she does not have another man living inside of her head. In point of fact he could read her question quite clearly on her face, but it didn't matter, because he is fine.

Rogue looks relieved. "Ah. Good. I don't—I was just tryin' to do my homework, and—" she flushes then, and he sees it perfectly—they're studying physics, and the lure of it is too much for Erik, and she was caught off guard because Rogue hates physics and he could promise her help….she hangs her head, ashamed.

"I understand. He's very subtle when he wants to be," Charles says soothingly.

She blushes at that. "Professor, I won't tell…about…you know." _About you and Magneto… _

It amuses him that she is more intrigued than anything by the prospect. "Why thank you, Rogue, but I assure you it no longer matters. That was a long time ago."

She stands there in his room, barefoot, hair streaming down her shoulders and he thinks that she is lovely, Rogue, and clever. That everything he fears Erik has become might lurk somewhere in her mind, but there is something else, too, that caused her to pull away before she hurt him. Something he hopes he has taught her—some innate goodness, stronger in the end than Erik's cynicism and bleak outlook for the future.

She nods and turns to go, but when she reaches for the door she turns her head to look at him. "It still matters to him," she says quietly.

When she's gone he remembers the press of her mouth against his, the fervor with which she clasped his hand, and hears Erik's voice in his mind.

_I never wanted to be your enemy, Charles. _

Maybe she's right, after all, but he doesn't think he'll ever know for certain. It's that fact, more than any other that saddens him. He lies back down in his bed, stares out at the moon, and knows he will get no further sleep that night.


End file.
